Lee Morgan

BLUE NOTE CLASSIC VINYL SERIES
MASTERED FROM THE ORIGINAL ANALOG TAPES

In early 1963, Lee Morgan’s future looked bleak. A 25-year-old trumpet virtuoso from Philadelphia who rose to international fame with Art Blakey & The Jazz Messengers, Morgan had been the boy wonder of hard bop until he became hooked on heroin. Selling his horn to score drugs, Morgan disappeared from the jazz scene. Rumors had even circulated that he had passed away. Somehow, by the end of the year, the trumpeter miraculously returned, recording the two most important albums of his career in quick succession: The Sidewinder in November 1963 and a more exploratory offering called Search for the New Land in February 1964.

Although now considered the deeper and more potent of the two albums, Search for the New Land was shelved by Blue Note to allow the label to concentrate on maximizing The Sidewinder’s surprise crossover appeal.

The LP was markedly different from anything Morgan had recorded before, capturing the trumpeter in a more meditative mood. Recorded three months after President John F. Kennedy’s assassination and a time when the Civil Rights Movement was gaining crucial momentum, “Search for the New Land” articulated the trumpeter’s sense of disenchantment with the old world order and served as a haunting rumination on the state of America.

PERSONNEL
Lee Morgan - trumpet
Wayne Shorter - tenor sax
Grant Green - guitar
Herbie Hancock - piano
Reginald Workman - bass
Billy Higgins - drums

TRACKLIST
Side A
1. Search For The New Land
2. The Joker

Side B
3. Mr. Kenyatta
4. Melancholee
5. Morgan The Pirate